Kidney transplantation, through a method called desensitization, doctors successfully altered the immune system of patients to enable them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors. Substantially more patients remained alive after eight years compared to those who stayed on waiting lists or received their kidney from a dead donor.

The new research is being called a possible “paradigm shift” in the world of medicine. Patients on the wait for a compatible donor experience the stress, anxiety, and possibly terror of never knowing if a match would ever be found. At the moment, there are around 100,000 people in the U.S. who are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Unfortunately, a majority of them might never find a compatible match.

Desensitization filters the antibodies out of the patient’s blood, and then offers him an infusion of other antibodies for protective action, while the immune system is regenerating its own antibodies. It is unclear how, but the reproduced antibodies prove less likely to attack the transplanted organ.

If the regenerated antibodies remain a concern, drugs are provided to destroy any white blood cell that would prompt the antibodies to attack the kidney. Continue reading